"Blish, James - Seeding Program" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

deep, many-pronged sea, largest at the eastern end, which
runs from about 120 to 165 in longitude, and from about
10 to 33 North latitude. A sea of what? Oh, water, of
course water frozen rock-solid forever, and covered with a
layer of rock-dust about three inches thick.
East of the Trident, and running all the way north to the
pole, is a great triangular marking called the Gouge, a tom-
up, root-entwined, avalanche-shaken valley which continues
right around the pole and back up into the other hemisphere,
fanning out as it goes. ( Up because north to space pilots, as to
astronomers, is down.) There is nothing quite like the Gouge
on any other planet, although at inferior conjunction, when
your ship is coming down on Ganymede at the 180 meridian,
it is likely to remind you of Syrtis Major on Mars.
There is, however, no real resemblance. Syrtis Major is per-
haps the pleasantest land on all of Mars. The Gouge, on the
other hand, is -a gouge.
On the eastern rim of this enormous scar, at long. 218, N.
lat. 32, is an isolated mountain about 9,000 feet high, which
had no name as far as Sweeney knew; it was marked with the
letter pi on the Howe map. Because of its isolation, it can be
seen easily from Earth's Moon in a good telescope when the
sunrise terminator lies in that longitude, its peak shining de-
tached in the darkness like a little star. A semicircular shelf
juts westward out over the Gouge from the base of Howe's pi,
it sides bafflingly sheer for a world which shows no other
signs of folded strata.
It was on that shelf that the other Adapted Men lived.
Sweeney stared down at the nearly invisible mountain with
its star-fire peak for a long time, wondering why he was not
reacting. Any appropriate emotion would do: anticipation,
alarm, eagerness, anything at all, even fear. For that matter,
having been locked up in a safe for over two months should
by now have driven him foaming to get out, even if only to
join the Adapted Men. Instead, the tranquility persisted. He
was unable to summon more than a momentary curiosity over
Howe's pi before his eye was drawn away to Jupiter himself,
looming monstrous and insanely-colored only 600,000 miles
away, give or take a few thousand. And even that planet had
attracted him only because it was brighter; otherwise, it had
no meaning.
"Mickey?" he said, forcing himself to look back down into
the Gouge.
"Right here, Sweeney. How does it look?'
"Oh, like a relief map. That's how they all look. Where are
you going to put me down? Don't the orders leave it up to
us?"
"Yeah. But I don't think there's any choice," Meikiejon's
voice said, less hesitantly. "It'll have to be the big plateau
Howe's H."